Tag: canceling class

As one of my OSU friends called today. Sounds better than “snow day”, doesn’t it?

Today is Thursday, 01/20/2011 and it has been snowing all day and all of last night and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up. How do you know whether or not you should go to school based on OSU’s requirements or based on your personal sense of safety? Do you scour Facebook for ways to bolster your courage through friends’ posts like, “No way in hell I’m wrecking my car going to Entomology 101!” or “I am not risking life, limb or deductible for this class!”?

Second, you have to make the call yourself sometimes. Being that we are not under any snow emergency level right now, OSU is operating under normal conditions. That means that your professor cannot cancel class and is obligated to have it. But you have to ask yourself sometimes if you’re confident that you can get to and from campus without risking your life or the lives of those on the road with you.

I drive a hybrid, which was designed to be about 1/3 lighter than the standard Camry and was engineered to glide further than a normal car as well to boost fuel efficiency. In other words, it is as my classmate called it, “an overgrown sled.”

I did not feel safe driving to campus, especially considering the fact that the roads by me have not even been touched yet. I e-mailed my professor and she understood. Keep in mind that on days like this, your professor is well aware of the weather and has probably been contacted by several of your classmates already with the same question, albeit more properly worded: “Do I HAVE to go to class?? Do I?? I don’t WANNA!” Give him or her a heads up and get their opinion.

So this evening, rather than sledding down 315 North in a very large and expensive toboggan, I am going to finish this blog post, read the slides that the professor posted on Carmen for tonight’s lecture, and read ahead while drinking hot cocoa and trying to keep my kitten from laying on my warm laptop keyboard to take a nap.